Treating the Wounded After Fighting in Sudan's North Darfur State

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) helped provide urgent medical care at El Seraif hospital to 121 wounded people, including two children, following recent violence in Jebel Amir, North Darfur state. MSF was the only international organization to remain in the area during the fighting.

MSF medical teams have worked with the Sudanese Ministry of Health to support El Seraif since February 8, 2013. Sixty-one of the patients treated for injuries sustained in the fighting have since been discharged. MSF teams also facilitated the transfer of 50 of the most severely wounded to El Fashir teaching hospital in the capital of North Darfur.

“MSF’s emergency team, working with Ministry of Health teams, performed 15 surgeries to gunshot-wounded patients during the recent violence from February 21 to 23,” said Fernando Medina, MSF head of mission in Sudan. “Despite an unstable situation, we decided to stay in El Seraif to support emergency care.” MSF also donated emergency medical supplies and drugs to El Seraif hospital and distributed high-calorie, vitamin-fortified food donated by other agencies to some 9,600 children to help prevent malnutrition.

MSF supported several emergency responses in Sudan in 2012, donating household items and clean drinking water to communities affected by floods in July in Al-Gedaref and Sennar states. In December 2012 and February 2013 MSF supported health authorities in vaccinating more than 850,000 people against yellow fever in North and Central Darfur states. Joint medical teams also treated 324 patients suspected of having yellow fever.

Currently MSF works in various locations in North Darfur, running clinics in Tawila and Dar Zaghawa and providing a range of services in Ministry of Health facilities and through community health networks.

MSF is an independent medical humanitarian association working in nearly 70 countries. MSF teams assist people in distress irrespective of their religion, race, or political beliefs. MSF has been working in Sudan since 1979, and currently has projects in Al-Gedaref, Sennar, and North, South, and East Darfur states. MSF started working in Darfur in 1985, and has been working in the region continuously since 2004.